Bailout Fails. DOW Plunges 778 points. What do you think? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

ottopilot · 09-29-2008, 07:51 PM

Perhaps we're turning in to France.

tisonlyi · 09-29-2008, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Perhaps we're turning in to France.

Worldwide respect, respectable birthrate, well-educated populace, stable population (the 'riots' in Paris seem like a standard Saturday night in Nottingham, to me), universal healthcare, independent nuclear deterent, peace with its neighbours, etc, etc, etc.

Oh hang on, what's the conservative meme?

Freedom Fries! (while the economy burns)

ottopilot · 09-29-2008, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tisonlyi

Worldwide respect, respectable birthrate, well-educated populace, stable population (the 'riots' in Paris seem like a standard Saturday night in Nottingham, to me), universal healthcare, independent nuclear deterent, peace with its neighbours, etc, etc, etc.

Oh hang on, what's the conservative meme?

Freedom Fries! (while the economy burns)

France is perfect. What's your point?

tisonlyi · 09-29-2008, 08:28 PM

They speak French and vote over 10% National Front consistently (if memory serves).

France isn't perfect.

Perceived snark counterpointed with substance on what was being snarked at.

What was your point? "Perhaps we're turning into France"

Come on though, "Freedom fries while the economy burns" <- that's good.

EDIT:

Plus, of course:

<3<3<3

ottopilot · 09-29-2008, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tisonlyi

They speak French and vote over 10% National Front consistently (if memory serves).

France isn't perfect.

Perceived snark counterpointed with substance on what was being snarked at.

What was your point? "Perhaps we're turning into France"

Come on though, "Freedom fries while the economy burns" <- that's good.

EDIT:

Plus, of course:

<3<3<3

Thanks for asking. I like the copious use of the flairful "wink" emoticon. Is that French as well?

Conservative meme? Freedom Fries? Assume much?

Admittedly, my comment was intended to push a random button seeing if anyone caught the point before making the point. The original bailout strategy would be breaking new ground where the government becomes a shareholder in business, finance, state and local governments, trade unions, etc. Kind of French-ish.

I look forward to more entertaining generalizations with "winks".

BTW- she's hot, but not this hot

flstf · 09-29-2008, 08:53 PM

The way my father and grandfather described the great depression they lived through I think I would rather have the government step in. There must be some way to implement a system that will not result in a few banks taking us all down. I don't know if this will crash the economy as bad as the '30s but if it is close then it is not worth hanging on to free market ideals.

The incompetance of the CEOs of these companies is unbelievable. How much more do the stockholders have to increase pay to attract people who know how to run a company. I can understand 1 or 2 banks screwing up but why so many tied their (I guess I should say our) futures up in this toxic paper is beyond belief. This sort of thing will cause many more people to loose what little faith they have left in the free market system.

ObieX · 09-29-2008, 10:31 PM

Seems to me as this whole process is just one more step toward the implementation of the Amero.. ..but you didn't hear that from me.

fresnelly · 09-30-2008, 04:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flstf

How much more do the stockholders have to increase pay to attract people who know how to run a company.

Perhaps they need to be paid less.

Glory's Sun · 09-30-2008, 06:07 AM

I just don't get all the hype over this. We're NOT in a crisis. We're in a recession.. a recession that could possibly hit the 16 month mark. You can look at all the numbers out there and we're not even close to depression numbers. The market dropped 700+ points yesterday..but it was only a 7% loss. In '87 the market lost something like 22%.. so it's pretty pale in comparison. BAA numbers show a deep recession.. not a depression.. so I wish everyone would quit calling this a crisis.

The market goes up and down.. companies go up and down.. but for some reason, we are scared of Wall St. companies going down.. it's a free market and other companies, just as they have, can and will buy these downtrend companies. If people would quit panicking for a moment.. you'd see the market respond a touch.. sure.. the market goes down faster than it goes up.. and everyone is worried about their annuities and 401's.. but making a panic run isn't going to help secure these monies.

SO.. this is why I think the bailout in any shape is a stupid idea. We're throwing a band-aid on a gun wound.. and we've done that too often in too many areas.

flstf · 09-30-2008, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guccilvr

SO.. this is why I think the bailout in any shape is a stupid idea. We're throwing a band-aid on a gun wound.. and we've done that too often in too many areas.

I hope you are right. I guess we will soon see if any companies are unable to expand or make payroll. Hopefully the president, both candidates, and most of the so called economic experts are wrong. It is kind of scary though to see what were considered to be conservative companies that have been in business hundreds of years go belly up. It seems like every day we hear of a few more and it is beginning to look like a landslide. I thought I heard the other day that Buffett was scarfing up some of the failures.

roachboy · 09-30-2008, 06:36 AM

so let's see: the nationalization of fannie mae and freddie mac, the nationalization of aig, the failure of lehmann brothers, the collapse of washington mutual, the buy=out of wachovia's banking operations, the near-collapse of several banks in england...definitely business as usual.

a steady tracking-down of home values, an acceleration of mortgage defaults, a destabilization of the entire system of debt generation and circulation...

a reactive bush administration whose neoliberal ideology prevents it from being able to even imagine how to address systemic problems...

china stops lending to the united states---the federal reserve stretched to its limits by the ad hoc decision to take over aig after pressure comes from most of the metropole to act...

the entire american model of capitalism, articulated in earnest since the 1980s, resting on the mutations in capitalist organization begun (@the level of structural alteration) in the early 1970s...the entire ideology for which it stands, which has rationalized it, justified it,,,,the cultural context in which that ideology has long since been blurred into the lingua franca of infotainment transfer..all of it faces a situation that it outside its short-term tiny brain logic.

i don't see this as a Crisis in the sense that dialectical materialism once forecast, the development of "objective contradiction" to the point of explosion, as a result of which Revolution would follow as the Working Class recognized it's "Objective Interests" (with the help of a cadre of professional revolutionaries of course)...but this sure as hell is a Problem and cannot in any coherent way be integrated into the terminologies that are used to describe the ordinary fluctuations with a bidness cycle of x-duration (take your pick---if you create a cycle long enough, everything seems normal)....

the real problems that make this something Outside the normal run of cycle=unfolding is the political dimension of it.
to my mind, what we're starting to see is the consequences of the bush administration policies, which are the most advanced expression of the interior logic of neoliberalism understood from the self-blinding viewpoint of "the hegemon."

while it is possible that the outcome of this may more or less resemble the situation that preceded this, it is increasingly unlikely that will be the case. it'd take some thinking to do it, not reacting to some Crisis Mode which is primarily about setting up an Imaginary Clock that ticks ticks ticks our collective way to one or another version of armageddeon.

when this type of scenario has unfolded---and it has repeatedly---in the southern hemisphere in the context of "trade liberalization" or "integration into the global economy" what stabilized it was the neoliberal "Plan" that we quaintly refer to as "structural adjustment"---this is the same kind of crisis, the same kind of scenario of governing from crisis--but without the overarching institution with the Plan--no matter how brutal (and the imf sap programs were are remain brutal--but in the american media bubble, you don't see it. not enough room for that kind of thing when there's so much in the way of sports to be shown, for example)....when this crisis hits the metropole--the powers that run the institutions that have the Plan, the powers which are the Interests that shape the Plan---then there is no plan.

that's a crisis.

Glory's Sun · 09-30-2008, 07:36 AM

you can call this a crisis because you see big names going down in flames.. but when you look at the numbers.. you don't see a crisis. You simply see the result of big firms getting bear raided by the short sell and you see the result of big firms finally having to own up to all the bad paper they wrote.

We now see the demise of what is known as the Republican Party. They can't even get their vote counts right.. however, I want to point out that during all of this so called crisis, we see the champion of this bill being none other than Bush. Why am I to believe this man when he says a bailout is what we need, when his record shows that we should stay as far away from his economic advice as possible?

The fact of the matter still remains that we will see a deeper run of a recession if a bailout does or doesn't occur, but I am willing to bet our economy will be better off in the long run as a whole unit if we do not look to the government for a bailout. A bailout does nothing to teach lessons of economic failure. It simply tells a corporation that it's ok if you fuck up, we'll just bail you out, which in the end makes the economy even weaker. So again, I say no to the bailout plan.

Cynthetiq · 09-30-2008, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flstf

I hope you are right. I guess we will soon see if any companies are unable to expand or make payroll. Hopefully the president, both candidates, and most of the so called economic experts are wrong. It is kind of scary though to see what were considered to be conservative companies that have been in business hundreds of years go belly up. It seems like every day we hear of a few more and it is beginning to look like a landslide. I thought I heard the other day that Buffett was scarfing up some of the failures.

Unable to expand? Make Payroll?

making payroll is important but also having a solvent company wherein your assets and liabilities aren't like any normal person living paycheck to paycheck.

If such a company exists, well, IMO they shouldn't. They are not credit worthy and shouldn't be extended credit. It's that simple.

As far as expansion, well, when credit is tight it is tight. If some bank is willing to take the risk then it's all good, but just because a business wants to expand doesn't mean it should be allowed to because it wants to.
-----Added 30/9/2008 at 11 : 53 : 21-----

Quote:

View: Let Risk-Taking Financial Institutions Fail
Source: Time
posted with the TFP thread generator

Let Risk-Taking Financial Institutions Fail
Monday, Sep. 29, 2008
Let Risk-Taking Financial Institutions Fail
By Ari J. Officer and Lawrence H. Officer

The Administration and Congress have felt compelled to do something about the "financial meltdown," so an inefficient and inequitable "bailout plan" has been rushed through the legislature despite harsh criticism from the right and left. That's unfortunate. Both presidential candidates were stalling by qualifying the plan. Whichever candidate had had the courage to reject outright this proposal would have had the better claim to be President.

Do not be fooled. The $700 billion (ultimately $1 trillion or more) bailout is not predominantly for mortgages and homeowners. Instead, the bailout is for mortgage-backed securities. In fact, some versions of these instruments are imaginary derivatives. These claims overlap on the same types of mortgages. Many financial institutions wrote claims over the same mortgages, and these are the majority of claims that have "gone bad."

At this point, such claims have no bearing on the mortgage or housing crisis; they have bearing only on the holders of these securities themselves. These are ridiculously risky claims with little value for society. It is as if many financial institutions sold "earthquake insurance" on the same house: when the quake hits, all these claims become close to worthless — but the claims are simply bets disconnected from reality.

Follow the money. Average Joes and Janes are not the holders of the other side of complicated, over-the-counter derivatives contracts. Rather, hedge funds are the main holders. The bailout will involve a transfer of wealth — from the American people to financial institutions engaging in reckless speculation — that will be the greatest in history.

Rescuing financial institutions is not the best solution. Yes, banks are needed to provide capital to businesses. But it is not necessary to spend $1 trillion to maintain liquidity. If the government is to intervene, it should pick and choose which claims to purchase; claims that are directly tied to mortgages would be a good start.

Let financial institutions fail, merge or be bought out. The faltering institutions will see their shares devalued and will be likely to be taken over by stronger institutions — as has already started happening. This consolidation of the financial sector is both efficient and inevitable; government action can only delay the adjustment.

The government should not intervene. It should leave overleveraged financial institutions to default on their derivatives obligations and, if necessary, file for bankruptcy. Much of the crisis has arisen from miscalculating the risks involved in a large book of positions in these derivatives. It is only logical that these institutions pay for their poor management.

Rather than bailing out Wall Street, we propose that the government should buy up the actual mortgages in question and do nothing else. The government should not touch any derivatives; that is, claims that do not directly tie into the actual mortgages. If money becomes too tight, then the Fed can certainly increase its loans to financial institutions.

Let the poorly managed, overly risk-taking financial institutions fail! Always remember that Wall Street and the real economy are not the same thing.

— Ari J. Officer has completed his master of science degree in financial mathematics at Stanford University. Lawrence H. Officer is a professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

I read this arcticle and completely agree with it. I don't think that I should assume the risk for some bad bettors out there. They took the risk they get the gains, they don't share them with me. Why should they take the risk, and I take the penalty also?

This is their faults, no better than junk bonds. They wrote junk mortgages, sold them to mortgage derivatives, and resold and repackaged, etc. etc. I didn't buy any of those in my portfolio. Why am I supposed to clean up their mess?

roachboy · 09-30-2008, 07:53 AM

gucci--in a way i agree with you (bush's credibility is not even a ghost) but for me that doesn't extend to my assessment of what's happening--i think it's bigger than you do both in terms of causes and consequences--what's more, i think that it is a good and necessary thing that neoliberalism burn, and it seems that this is the way it's to happen. so when i say "crisis" i don't mean it in the sense of PANIC NOW, but more in the sense that i think we're watching an ideologically framed group of people trying to address a situation that's way beyond the abilities of that ideology to frame coherently, and as they twist in the wind trying to figure out what to do, the political crisis--which is what this really is, to my mind---continues to get deeper. trick is that there's no way to measure a political crisis--it kinda is as it appears to be, and how it appears is a sum of what is said about it. not that much different from the economy, when you strip away the illusions of science provided by equations and the "proofs" of economists.

crisis is part of how capitalism works--large-scale crisis is part of how neoliberalism has exported itself to the south over the past 20 years or so--what's different here is what i said before.

Glory's Sun · 09-30-2008, 08:09 AM

well I will agree that we are in a political crisis.. well.. ok.. at least the conservatives are in a crisis.. and I'm not going to really complain about that.

I just want to make sure people understand that we are not really in an economic crisis. Banks are at their own risk when they assume bad debt and repackage that debt and take on debt of other institutions. The only thing that I'm really worried about is all this consolidation. We're seeing banks being eaten up by other banks which leaves less competition..and this is nothing but bad news on the economic front. There was a piece here yesterday about Wachovia consumers pulling their money out on the news that Citi is taking over operations. Most residential consumers will never see the effect of these buyouts but yet they still panic. Panic is bad.. just sit back..relax.. take a few hits here and there and you and the market will level back out in time.. it may take another 8 months or so, but it will level out..and when it does we won't be on the hook for 700 billion dollars..

abaya · 09-30-2008, 08:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guccilvr

There was a piece here yesterday about Wachovia consumers pulling their money out on the news that Citi is taking over operations. Most residential consumers will never see the effect of these buyouts but yet they still panic. Panic is bad.. just sit back..relax.. take a few hits here and there and you and the market will level back out in time.. it may take another 8 months or so, but it will level out..and when it does we won't be on the hook for 700 billion dollars..

Yeah, this is the thing I don't get. I am definitely not running to the bank anytime soon (of course, I'm not even IN the US to run to my American bank accounts, but still)... that will just make things worse. In Iceland, the state just bought out 75% of my bank (nationalizing it), which is alarming, but I am also not running to the bank for that.

Okay, actually I did run to the bank today, but only to cash a tiny American check because dollars are now worth 40% more than they were a year ago, lol.

And 10% more than they were a few days ago. The Icelandic króna has never been so low, it's quite sad. Unfortunately, my check was only for a couple hundred dollars, which is a drop in the bucket compared to how much value we lost in the krónur we have in the bank. (If we want to take that money back with us to the US, it will be worth 40% less than what it was a year ago, which is insane. We are leaving it in Iceland and only coming back to get it once the currency stabilizes--if it does.)

This is definitely worldwide.

Cynthetiq · 09-30-2008, 08:43 AM

From what I understand there is nothing like FDIC in Iceland or many other countries. There are a few that do offere something similar insuring the depositors. Other than that, if the Glitnir goes belly up, our money goes poof.

As far as our money being in WaMu, well that's FDIC insured so I'm not too worried about that as a depositor.

As far as a worldwide thing yes, many banks got bailed out and governements injected money into the systems yesterday across Europe in UK, Belgium, Germany, France, Brazil... of course US media isn't reporting this very well.

Quote:

View: European Governments Rescue Another Failing Bank
Source: Washingtonpost
posted with the TFP thread generator

European Governments Rescue Another Failing Bank
European Governments Rescue Another Failing Bank

By Edward Cody and Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, September 30, 2008; 11:10 AM

PARIS, Sept. 30 -- The French and Belgian governments stepped in to rescue another failing European bank Tuesday as the turmoil that began on Wall Street continued rippling across the globe.

Dexia, a Franco-Belgian bank that specializes in lending to local governments, got a $9.2 billion injection of capital to stave off imminent collapse after a loss of public confidence led to a 30 percent decline in its stock price Monday, according to announcements from the French and Belgian governments.

It was the fifth time in recent days that European officials have had to respond to a crisis at one of their financial institutions, abruptly ending the confidence European officials displayed as recently as last week that their financial system was not as endangered by the troubled mortgage loans undermining the U.S. system. With the pace and scale of events seeming to quicken, the Irish government guaranteed the debt of six financial companies amid a sell-off of bank stocks, and European officials discussed possible broader action to address problems with the global financial system.

In the case of Dexia, "the decision was taken to guarantee the continuity of financing for French local communities, as well as to contribute to the security and stability of the French and European financial systems, according to the commitment of the president of the republic," said an announcement from President Nicolas Sarkozy's office in Paris.

The Belgian prime minister, Yves Leterme, told reporters in Brussels that the early morning decision was designed to help the bank "cope with what is going on in the financial markets."

Underscoring the sense of urgency that has emerged in Europe over the financial crisis, Sarkozy's office said he approved the deal during a 5 a.m. meeting at the Elysee Palace along with Prime Minister Francois Fillon, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde and Christian Noyer, governor of the Bank of France. The early hour indicated a desire to release news of the rescue before Tuesday morning's opening of European stock markets, which were expected to react negatively to the failure on Monday of the Bush administration's $700 billion financial rescue package.

However after the first hours of the trading day, the reaction on European exchanges was muted, with none of the major indexes moving more than 1 percent up or down. In Asia, such major markets as the Nikkei were down as much as 4 percent, though Hong Kong's Hang Seng added nearly 1 percent.

The $9.2 billion Dexia bailout will be financed by the French government, the Belgian government and institutional shareholders, which include a large French government-owned savings bank, the Caisse des Depots et Consignations, according to announcements in Paris and Brussels. In addition, the Luxembourg government will provide guarantees for more than $500 million in convertible bonds for the bank's operations in the dutchy.

With the rescue deal, the French government will control directly or indirectly about 25 percent of the capital, giving it what Sarkozy's office called a "blocking minority" in the bank's affairs. Alluding to Sarkozy's recent pledge to sanction traders and executives responsible for the crisis, the announcement added that the French government will take advantage of its power in Dexia to insist on improvements in the way the bank is run -- and by whom.

The bank was reported to have come under pressure after refinancing a U.S. subsidiary, the bond insurance firm Financial Security Assurance (FSA), which had posted losses linked to subprime mortgage loans in the United States.

The Dexia rescue continues a flow of crisis-related developments around the globe, as U.S. lawmakers wrestled with a proposed bailout package. Stock markets around the world cascaded lower Monday, European regulators announced the rescue of four major banks, and U.S. and foreign officials pledged to make hundreds of billions of dollars available to ensure that banks would continue lending to one another.

European confidence was eroded over the weekend by a raft of emergency bank rescues. By Monday morning, after Asian stock markets had nose-dived, credit markets were seizing up, meaning that the normal flow of trading among banks wasn't taking place. The European Central Bank then announced it was pumping an extra $173 billion into European markets. In Washington, the Federal Reserve said it would make an additional $620 billion available for future lending to nine foreign central banks.

The head of one of those nine, Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa, said Monday that global financial liquidity "has almost dried up."

European banks are strained by the recent collapse of property booms close to home, notably in Britain, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, by exposure to bad U.S. mortgage securities, and by the general drying up of short-term credit. Japan's economy is already suffering from a highly unusual trade deficit, and domestic demand for goods appears to be waning, too, the Tokyo government reported Tuesday. Last month household spending fell 4 percent and factory output dropped 3.5 percent.

The House rejection Monday of the White House's $700 billion rescue plan seemed likely to increase international concern over what might be next.

In Europe, the banking crisis "can hardly spread further -- it is everywhere," said Willem Buiter, a professor at the London School of Economics and former member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet sat down Sunday with several European finance ministers in Brussels to discuss loosening European Union rules on government guarantees for banks in need of quick infusions of capital. Their meeting suggested that European governments feared they would need to intervene again.

Sarkozy, who said Thursday that French banks appeared able to overcome the threat, summoned the country's top bank executives, his senior financial aides and the governor of the Bank of France for an urgent meeting Tuesday. His finance minister, Lagarde, renewed her promise that "the government will assume its responsibilities" to prevent losses to French savings and investment account holders.

Sarkozy's office said he had conferred Friday with President Bush, pushing his idea for a meeting of heads of state from the major industrial powers by year's end to envision a top-to-bottom overhaul of the world financial system. The summit could be held at Bretton Woods, N.H., where officials met in 1944 to set the basics of today's world financial system, the Paris media reported.

European markets were closed by the time the House of Representatives voted, but in Brazil, located in a closer time zone, the news sent the Bovespa index down 9 points, its largest drop in a decade. Trading was halted for half an hour.

Some economists attributed the fall to concerns that economic troubles in the United States could hurt Brazil's commodities trade. "If the United States goes through a huge recession, other countries will suffer," said José Márcio Camargo, an economist at Opus Gestao de Recursos, an asset management firm in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's treasury, meanwhile, injected nearly $8 billion into the country's national development bank to help companies that are having trouble accessing credit.

Guillermo Mondino, an analyst with Barclays Capital, wrote in a new report that "the global credit crunch seems increasingly to be spilling over to emerging markets. Lines of credit are tightening, disruptions in domestic banking systems are on the rise, and domestic interest rates are increasing. The result is likely to be slower growth."

Mondino wrote that Latin America may feel a credit pinch because foreign banks are such major players in the region. Foreign banks account for 80 percent of the financial system in Mexico, 51 percent in Peru, 29 percent in Chile and 22 percent in Brazil.

Europe's sense of confidence was particularly undercut by the rescue of Fortis, a Dutch-Belgian banking and insurance giant that once ranked among the world's top 20 financial institutions. The Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg governments said Monday they had put up the equivalent of $16 billion to buy the group's faltering banking operations, in effect nationalizing them for now.

Fortis's troubles were partly related to its role in a huge takeover deal and fears among investors that, despite their leaders' reassuring comments, European banks are too tightly linked to their U.S. counterparts in a globalized monetary system to escape the crisis. Even after the rescue plan was announced, Fortis stock dropped 12 percent during Monday's trading.

As the possibility of bailouts loomed in Europe, many officials had worried whether the European Union, composed of 27 countries with sometimes opposing points of view, would be paralyzed. Buiter, of the London School of Economics, said the speed of the Fortis rescue showed otherwise.

The injection of funds into Fortis "happened overnight and without anyone needing to consult with parliaments," he said. "The political capability for addressing a crisis like this is significantly greater in Europe than in the U.S. There was doubt, until today really, that multiple national treasuries would be able to agree on sharing rules."

In Britain, authorities Monday announced a bailout for Bradford & Bingley, a bank specializing in mortgage loans. The government put up $90 billion to absorb questionable loans, the announcement said, while the Spanish bank Santander paid $37.8 billion to take over retail and savings bank branches.

The German government, meanwhile, announced Monday that it had orchestrated a bailout of the country's second-biggest commercial property lender, Hypo Real Estate Holding AG. The German Finance Ministry said it arranged an emergency credit line of $50 billion for the bank from several private lenders.

The rescue came four days after Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said the country's banking system was "extremely stable."

Problems at Hypo Real Estate, which lends primarily to local governments and property developers, had been known for months; the bank had posted big losses on its subprime loans in the United States. But Hypo's access to credit rapidly eroded and other problems with speculative investments emerged in recent days, forcing the German government to intervene, according to government and bank officials.

Analysts said that German banks remained on a stronger footing than those in the United States or Britain and that it was unlikely the government would need to fashion an industry-wide bailout.

In Iceland, the government said Monday it had taken control of Glitnir bank, the country's third-largest, paying about $878 million for a 75 percent stake.

abaya · 09-30-2008, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Other than that, if the Glitnir goes belly up, our money goes poof.

Yeah, and you haven't been living here and saving ISK for the last 18 months, with every paycheck being in ISK and going into a Glitnir bank account. We stand to lose a lot (we already have).

You know that it's now 105 ISK to 1 USD, right? Today began at 100.

Cynthetiq · 09-30-2008, 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CNN.com

Stocks rallied this afternoon as investors scooped up shares battered in the bloodletting that followed Congress' failure to pass a $700 billion bank rescue plan. The Dow Jones industrial average added nearly 500 points, recovering some of the record 777 points lost the day before, CNNMoney.com reports.

so a net 200 point loss? I'm not so sure it's a crisis that needs our intervention at all.

roachboy · 09-30-2008, 12:20 PM

banks failed in france and belgium today as a direct consequence of this mess in the united states.
there is enormous political pressure from all over the metropole for the american political system to get it's shit together and "do something" to deal with a crisis of confidence that's percolating out into a credit freeze--the rates for interbank lending at at an all-time high today...

but the dow's up.
so maybe everyone's just making this up.
or maybe there are people feeding on yesterday's wreckage.

no problemo.

Cynthetiq · 09-30-2008, 12:27 PM

I'm not saying that it doesn't need attention, I'm saying that it doesn't need this chicken little running around and attention from the taxpayers. They took the risks, they should fail. Otherwise, why shouldn't everyone then take a risk if there is NO risk anyways?

Quote:

Originally Posted by cnn.com

The voters said no
The reality is that conservative House members were less interested in the ear-ache they got from Pelosi than the earful they've been getting from constituents.

Calls to Congressional offices have been running overwhelmingly against the rescue - just five weeks before constituents go to the polls to vote on their members. In the week since Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke rushed to Capitol Hill urging Congress to ward off a financial collapse by passing a bailout within 48 hours, they've argued that the situation is urgent and that financial markets are in crisis.

But the dire warnings didn't provide enough political cover for lawmakers facing voter wrath. They may have even backfired in some cases, stirring suspicion that the White House and Treasury were over-blowing the magnitude of the crisis to shove through unprecedented intervention in the financial markets that would benefit Wall Street's fat cats.

roachboy · 09-30-2008, 12:36 PM

the only way in which i agree with the political talking head class is that we are now beyond that kind of thinking.
like it or not, the arbitrary investments of belief that underpin the circulations of capital are in serious trouble---there is no moral economy that does not sit atop the same kind of thing.

but there's a side of me that agrees with you, cyn----fuck them, let em burn---but not for the same reasons as you. and then there's the other side of me that thinks this is way way past the point where that is really an option and since we all live here too, we kinda have to assume that Somone can do Something to shore up the financial system in general so that the change that's really needed can get thought out and implemented.

then there's this third side that thinks the only honorable thing for the elected government in power to do now, if they cannot do something, is to resign. all of them. we are fucked, we give up, push up the elections and swear in a new government.
at least that way, the opposition that's been taking shape not just to these incoherent bailouts, but to the entire political order encapsulated in the person of george w bush, would mean something.

but most of me thinks this is kinda funny. it's funny because the paralysis of thinking has been inflicted on so many places for so long in the form of artificial crises and imf bailouts, forced privatization and dumping of american agricultural overproduction in the name of free trade--it's funny to see the same shit happening here. so when i think fuck em, let em all burn, i am really not saying the same thing as you. but i agree with the sentiment. partly.

abaya · 09-30-2008, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

but most of me thinks this is kinda funny. it's funny because the paralysis of thinking has been inflicted on so many places for so long in the form of artificial crises and imf bailouts, forced privatization and dumping of american agricultural overproduction in the name of free trade--it's funny to see the same shit happening here. so when i think fuck em, let em all burn, i am really not saying the same thing as you. but i agree with the sentiment. partly.

/counts down the hours until someone accuses you of secretly being Rev. Wright, especially since chickens have already been mentioned in this thread.

percy · 09-30-2008, 01:27 PM

I really am beyond repair since I sincerely feel this was staged long ago for the rich to get richer, the almost rich getting richer, and a new system(soon to come) put back in place so that the aforementioned can loophole it to death and get mega richer,..all the while poor slobs like me and you absorb the repercussions to come.

And people wonder why no one gives a shit anymore.

Tully Mars · 09-30-2008, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guccilvr

I just don't get all the hype over this. We're NOT in a crisis. We're in a recession.. a recession that could possibly hit the 16 month mark. You can look at all the numbers out there and we're not even close to depression numbers. The market dropped 700+ points yesterday..but it was only a 7% loss. In '87 the market lost something like 22%.. so it's pretty pale in comparison. BAA numbers show a deep recession.. not a depression.. so I wish everyone would quit calling this a crisis.

In the last year the Dow's lost nearly 30%. It didn't do it in one day, but it didn't lose 22% in one day in 87' either. Unless the article I read is wrong. I certainly don't remember a day where the market dropped 22% in one day, then again I didn't have much of a 401k or many stocks then.

Plus I think this situation is a little different. This appears to be a credit crisis, don't think that was the cause of the 87' drop.

All that said I'm not sure this bail out was the right way to go. I feel like something needs to be done... what? I don't have a clue. But if nothing else comes out of this I'm hoping people wake up and start living within their means. IMO, many people "need" way more then they actually do.

Plan9 · 09-30-2008, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

I'm not saying that it doesn't need attention, I'm saying that it doesn't need this chicken little running around and attention from the taxpayers. They took the risks, they should fail. Otherwise, why shouldn't everyone then take a risk if there is NO risk anyways?

+1 to a lack of cheat codes and a Reset Button in the Real World (TM).

Uncle Sam is supposed to put training wheels on big business? Is that like taking my money to help out somebody else who already has more of my money and is doing a shitty job managing it?

If I lose money on my investments (oh, and how I have!)... it was with full knowledge that said losses were just a matter of realistic probability.

roachboy · 09-30-2008, 02:13 PM

it's gone beyond this cluck cluck mismanagement of money business now.
it really has.
i feel like a broken record.

we'll see how this small-frame thinking holds up when the credit lines on your credit cards start disappearing.

but what seems more basic a problem for thinking about this situation--whatever you decide to call it---is that this is a global problem, not just a problem of fucked up management at a few institutions. while the right was working on trying to use a neo-con conception of realpolitik to make the nation-state continue as a viable category, capital flows have moved into a different dimension entirely. one reason that folk seem to be having trouble with this situation is that they keep trying to think it as very small, very limited, involving a discrete geographical space. the ideology you think through is not adequate for the situation.
the other problem is that the right is now being confronted with the class consequences of it's project---the transfer of wealth away from the poor and "middle class" that has taken place since reagan is truly massive--the class interests that the republicans carry shit for are not the class interests that they talk about---somehow, the incoherent hodge-podge they have constructed maintains something of its influence, particularly in the economic sphere--all this nonsense about markets being moral, rewarding virtue and punishing its inverse, all this nonsense about the wealthy being wealthy because they are more virtuous and the rest of us being where we are because we are less than they, all this nonsense continues to have some resonance. but it's all an illusion: what you are doing is naturalizing a class order, and one of the consequences of naturalizing a class order is that when the shit hits the fan and the irrationalities within that order reveal themselves, you have nothing to say. o sure you're pissed off---but you have nothing to say. the political oligarchy operates within the same ideological frame. there's another sector that apparently thinks that the world as they know it, the world that enables them to extract obscene profits using questionable devices without there being any consequences at all, that world is coming to an end--and past that, it doesn't matter. sitting in some gated and guarded community with a vast pool of cash behind, it doesn't matter. you and i don't matter. nothing matters: they have theirs, and fuck the rest of us. and within this ideology, there's nothing to say and because there's nothing to say, there's nothing to be done. that's what you are watching burn now.

Tully Mars · 09-30-2008, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

we'll see how this small-frame thinking holds up when the credit lines on your credit cards start disappearing.

Already happened here. Have a airline miles card that had a CL of a completely ridiculous amount. I charged my daughter's new Toyota on it a few years back. I only did that because I left my checkbook at home and figured if I was using a card might as well get the miles. I paid it off that month and yes my daughter paid me back. I couldn't charge that car now. Now the limit is 10% of what it was. I don't really care it's still more then I'd want to have a credit card, but I do wonder if that will lower my credit score.

Cynthetiq · 09-30-2008, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

it's gone beyond this cluck cluck mismanagement of money business now.
it really has.
i feel like a broken record.

we'll see how this small-frame thinking holds up when the credit lines on your credit cards start disappearing.

but what seems more basic a problem for thinking about this situation--whatever you decide to call it---is that this is a global problem, not just a problem of fucked up management at a few institutions. while the right was working on trying to use a neo-con conception of realpolitik to make the nation-state continue as a viable category, capital flows have moved into a different dimension entirely. one reason that folk seem to be having trouble with this situation is that they keep trying to think it as very small, very limited, involving a discrete geographical space. the ideology you think through is not adequate for the situation.
the other problem is that the right is now being confronted with the class consequences of it's project---the transfer of wealth away from the poor and "middle class" that has taken place since reagan is truly massive--the class interests that the republicans carry shit for are not the class interests that they talk about---somehow, the incoherent hodge-podge they have constructed maintains something of its influence, particularly in the economic sphere--all this nonsense about markets being moral, rewarding virtue and punishing its inverse, all this nonsense about the wealthy being wealthy because they are more virtuous and the rest of us being where we are because we are less than they, all this nonsense continues to have some resonance. but it's all an illusion: what you are doing is naturalizing a class order, and one of the consequences of naturalizing a class order is that when the shit hits the fan and the irrationalities within that order reveal themselves, you have nothing to say. o sure you're pissed off---but you have nothing to say. the political oligarchy operates within the same ideological frame. there's another sector that apparently thinks that the world as they know it, the world that enables them to extract obscene profits using questionable devices without there being any consequences at all, that world is coming to an end--and past that, it doesn't matter. sitting in some gated and guarded community with a vast pool of cash behind, it doesn't matter. you and i don't matter. nothing matters: they have theirs, and fuck the rest of us. and within this ideology, there's nothing to say and because there's nothing to say, there's nothing to be done. that's what you are watching burn now.

rb... that's what my point is.

I'm very happy to live within my means of CASH. I charge everything because I'm getting the benefit of mileage, but if I didn't get that benefit? I'd pay in CASH. My lifestyle is to live within the means that I make. If I don't have the cash to pay for the bill at the end of the month, I don't buy it.

To say that it's just "small frame thinking" is a bit dismissive. My version of fiscal responsibility isn't about kiting checks and juggling my cashflow. It's HAVING the cash to pay for what I actually spend. No cash, no spend.

Conservative principle, and simple.

Tully Mars · 10-01-2008, 02:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

rb... that's what my point is.

I'm very happy to live within my means of CASH. I charge everything because I'm getting the benefit of mileage, but if I didn't get that benefit? I'd pay in CASH. My lifestyle is to live within the means that I make. If I don't have the cash to pay for the bill at the end of the month, I don't buy it.

To say that it's just "small frame thinking" is a bit dismissive. My version of fiscal responsibility isn't about kiting checks and juggling my cashflow. It's HAVING the cash to pay for what I actually spend. No cash, no spend.

Conservative principle, and simple.

Yes, yes, YES. You just can't tell me part of this BS crisis isn't firmly planted at the feet of US consumers who "need" to consume much more then they need nor can afford. Sure they're the banks writing the "bad paper," but someone's taking that paper and using it buy a plasma TV or $500 video iPod.

I have a some younger friends (yes, I have friends- who knew?) they got married a couple years ago. Both employed but no house- renters. Between the rings, the wedding and the honeymoon they were 40K in debt. Other then the ring, some photos and the memories it's basically 40K spent in two weeks, gone. Most of it went on a CC. What couldn't go on the cards he got a second loan on the equity in his car. I've heard of a home equity loan but a car equity loan? I watched, listened... I stayed the hell out of it. But many family members saw this train wreck coming and tried to talk sense to them. Nope! They knew what they were doing and everything would be fine. Last I heard his dad gave him some cash to keep his car from being repossessed.

Now they both have two jobs. Well she has two jobs. Clerical during the day, waitress at night. But he's picking up every overtime shift he can get. I talked to him right before moving here a year ago. He said he figured if they kept at it for another five years they'd be in the black. As he put it "It's not what they borrowed, it's the interest. He was explaining to me the interest on the car loan was crazy. Turns out the bank wanted more in interest, over time, then the amount of the loan. No kidding, really? Wait till he sees what the total amount of the payments adds up to on a 30 year mortgage.

Oh well, on the upside it was a beautiful ceremony and I guess they had a great time in Paris and Rome.

roachboy · 10-01-2008, 03:51 AM

cyn---to be clear about it, in my everyday life i live more or less the same way as you outline. i don't do it because i find it an expression of principle (i think about other things that way, more food-related usually)...

when i talk about the small frame, its mostly with reference to the debt market meltdown, its extent and implications.

the major agreement is that the underlying cause of this wreckage is the american reliance on debt. living within our individual means is one response to what might be coming. the system features are different---i think the main divergence we have comes down to the fact that i don't link individual actions and the system of global capital flows logically, dont use one as a metaphor for the other. i get confused when folk do it, and apparently misread the motivations behind it.

Charlatan · 10-01-2008, 04:01 AM

I can agree that consumers amassed a lot of debt. And in many cases that debt outstripped their earnings.

The thing is, those people should never have been granted credit in the first place. I don't want my bank playing fast and loose with my money by lending it to those who can't pay it back. It's that simple. The banks fucked up and they fucked up using our money... and now they want more of our money to bail them out.

Cynthetiq · 10-01-2008, 04:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

I can agree that consumers amassed a lot of debt. And in many cases that debt outstripped their earnings.

The thing is, those people should never have been granted credit in the first place. I don't want my bank playing fast and loose with my money by lending it to those who can't pay it back. It's that simple. The banks fucked up and they fucked up using our money... and now they want more of our money to bail them out.

right, this is the confusing thing to me.

I'm all for tightening credit, but tighten it to those that don't or can't afford it.

And for the love of god... freaking EXPLAIN what the F the FICO score really means or does since it's so tied into how you are to recieve credit.

When we mortgaged a house earlier this year, we were turned down by one institution because we didn't have enough revolving credit. We didn't keep enough balance on a card. WTF????

Charlatan · 10-01-2008, 04:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

When we mortgaged a house earlier this year, we were turned down by one institution because we didn't have enough revolving credit. We didn't keep enough balance on a card. WTF????

That means that you are likely to pay off your debts and do so early. They can't make money of you that way.

Glory's Sun · 10-01-2008, 06:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

In the last year the Dow's lost nearly 30%. It didn't do it in one day, but it didn't lose 22% in one day in 87' either. Unless the article I read is wrong. I certainly don't remember a day where the market dropped 22% in one day, then again I didn't have much of a 401k or many stocks then.

Plus I think this situation is a little different. This appears to be a credit crisis, don't think that was the cause of the 87' drop.

All that said I'm not sure this bail out was the right way to go. I feel like something needs to be done... what? I don't have a clue. But if nothing else comes out of this I'm hoping people wake up and start living within their means. IMO, many people "need" way more then they actually do.

Well.. ok I think the 22% in '87 was just over a few months time..not a year.. however, it took 6 months for the market to restabalize in '87.. so I think if there is no bailout it will take approx. 12-16 months for this market to correct itself. I just can't help but think that this bailout is going to cause even more problems in the future.

This is a credit issue that is now turning into a panic issue and a capital issue. There's only two people to blame. The consumers and their insatiable appetite for instant gratification, and the banks who wrote all the bad paper and repackaged it and wrote even more bad paper. The market can handle this.. it will go way down and partly up for a while but it will correct itself in a few months time. We'll see the unemployment rate go up for a couple of months and then we'll see it shift back down as people get a better understanding of how to handle the new market.

Edit: I forgot to mention that another thing the banks have been doing is pretty simple, but it's starting to bite them in their collective asses. If you are in foreclosure, many times a bank will agree to a partial buyout and a renegotiation. They stopped this practice in order to push a heavy loss into the quarter and make it back up in stock dividends. More loss=share price drop, next quarter the stock raises and they get heavy bonuses. It was all fine and dandy.. until the whole thing collapsed under their feet.

tisonlyi · 10-01-2008, 06:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

That means that you are likely to pay off your debts and do so early. They can't make money of you that way.

Exactly, credit isn't a rational function of system that attempts to generate a better economy or a better society, as it stands. Credit currently serves only to separate a wealth creator, at whatever level, from some, most or all of that wealth and deliver it into the hands of the creditor. Any and all benefits derived from credit is a by-product, not the intention of its supply.

Evil.

Me - only exists in a cash world, happily.

(damn possessive apostrophes)

hunbun0704 · 10-02-2008, 02:22 PM

On a slightly different note - but relates to the bailout plan: From a Forbes article last week...

The more Congress examines the Bush administration's bailout plan, the hazier its outcome gets. At a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle complained of being rushed to pass legislation or else risk financial meltdown.
"The secretary and the administration need to know that what they have sent to us is not acceptable," says Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn. The committee's top Republican, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, says he's concerned about its cost and whether it will even work.
In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.
"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

I feel this shows that it is all just a shot in the dark (as financial institutions like Chase has a trillion + in cash deposits). It has become funny money. I don't know what else to do, but I don't think this will do much but get the US past the election. At what point does it just implode? And for whom? I fear for those like my parents who were hoping to retire in the next 2 years. Ah, yea, not going to happen.

Glory's Sun · 10-03-2008, 09:38 AM

the bailout has been approved by the house

Quote:

WASHINGTON - Congress has passed complex and highly criticized legislation authorizing $700 billion in government money to shore up the nation's stressed financial industry.
ADVERTISEMENT

The 263-171 vote by the House sends the Senate-passed version to the White House for President Bush's signature. Among many features, the measure would allow the Treasury Department to buy up bad debt from various lending institutions.

Many members of the House voted for the bill even though some said it was not very attractive to them and to their constituents back home. The measure had been defeated in the same chamber on Monday, sending stocks on Wall Street into a record slide.

Announcement of the vote was greeted by applause.

dumb... fucking dumb.

Cynthetiq · 10-03-2008, 10:05 AM

mmmm pulled pork sandwiches...

i'd go as far as retarded. dumb seems to not be far enough.

LoganSnake · 10-03-2008, 10:23 AM

So what does that mean and how will it affect me?

09-29-2008, 07:51 PM	#41 (permalink)
ottopilot let me be clear Location: Waddy Peytona	Perhaps we're turning in to France. __________________ "It rubs the lotion on Buffy, Jodi and Mr. French's skin" - Uncle Bill from Buffalo

09-29-2008, 08:28 PM	#44 (permalink)
tisonlyi Nothing	They speak French and vote over 10% National Front consistently (if memory serves). France isn't perfect. Perceived snark counterpointed with substance on what was being snarked at. What was your point? "Perhaps we're turning into France" Come on though, "Freedom fries while the economy burns" <- that's good. EDIT: Plus, of course: <3<3<3 __________________ "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}-- Last edited by tisonlyi; 09-29-2008 at 08:32 PM..

09-29-2008, 10:31 PM	#47 (permalink)
ObieX Pickles Location: Shirt and Pants (NJ)	Seems to me as this whole process is just one more step toward the implementation of the Amero.. ..but you didn't hear that from me. __________________ We Must Dissent.

09-30-2008, 06:36 AM	#51 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	so let's see: the nationalization of fannie mae and freddie mac, the nationalization of aig, the failure of lehmann brothers, the collapse of washington mutual, the buy=out of wachovia's banking operations, the near-collapse of several banks in england...definitely business as usual. a steady tracking-down of home values, an acceleration of mortgage defaults, a destabilization of the entire system of debt generation and circulation... a reactive bush administration whose neoliberal ideology prevents it from being able to even imagine how to address systemic problems... china stops lending to the united states---the federal reserve stretched to its limits by the ad hoc decision to take over aig after pressure comes from most of the metropole to act... the entire american model of capitalism, articulated in earnest since the 1980s, resting on the mutations in capitalist organization begun (@the level of structural alteration) in the early 1970s...the entire ideology for which it stands, which has rationalized it, justified it,,,,the cultural context in which that ideology has long since been blurred into the lingua franca of infotainment transfer..all of it faces a situation that it outside its short-term tiny brain logic. i don't see this as a Crisis in the sense that dialectical materialism once forecast, the development of "objective contradiction" to the point of explosion, as a result of which Revolution would follow as the Working Class recognized it's "Objective Interests" (with the help of a cadre of professional revolutionaries of course)...but this sure as hell is a Problem and cannot in any coherent way be integrated into the terminologies that are used to describe the ordinary fluctuations with a bidness cycle of x-duration (take your pick---if you create a cycle long enough, everything seems normal).... the real problems that make this something Outside the normal run of cycle=unfolding is the political dimension of it. to my mind, what we're starting to see is the consequences of the bush administration policies, which are the most advanced expression of the interior logic of neoliberalism understood from the self-blinding viewpoint of "the hegemon." while it is possible that the outcome of this may more or less resemble the situation that preceded this, it is increasingly unlikely that will be the case. it'd take some thinking to do it, not reacting to some Crisis Mode which is primarily about setting up an Imaginary Clock that ticks ticks ticks our collective way to one or another version of armageddeon. when this type of scenario has unfolded---and it has repeatedly---in the southern hemisphere in the context of "trade liberalization" or "integration into the global economy" what stabilized it was the neoliberal "Plan" that we quaintly refer to as "structural adjustment"---this is the same kind of crisis, the same kind of scenario of governing from crisis--but without the overarching institution with the Plan--no matter how brutal (and the imf sap programs were are remain brutal--but in the american media bubble, you don't see it. not enough room for that kind of thing when there's so much in the way of sports to be shown, for example)....when this crisis hits the metropole--the powers that run the institutions that have the Plan, the powers which are the Interests that shape the Plan---then there is no plan. that's a crisis. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

09-30-2008, 07:53 AM	#54 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	gucci--in a way i agree with you (bush's credibility is not even a ghost) but for me that doesn't extend to my assessment of what's happening--i think it's bigger than you do both in terms of causes and consequences--what's more, i think that it is a good and necessary thing that neoliberalism burn, and it seems that this is the way it's to happen. so when i say "crisis" i don't mean it in the sense of PANIC NOW, but more in the sense that i think we're watching an ideologically framed group of people trying to address a situation that's way beyond the abilities of that ideology to frame coherently, and as they twist in the wind trying to figure out what to do, the political crisis--which is what this really is, to my mind---continues to get deeper. trick is that there's no way to measure a political crisis--it kinda is as it appears to be, and how it appears is a sum of what is said about it. not that much different from the economy, when you strip away the illusions of science provided by equations and the "proofs" of economists. crisis is part of how capitalism works--large-scale crisis is part of how neoliberalism has exported itself to the south over the past 20 years or so--what's different here is what i said before. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

09-29-2008, 08:53 PM	#46 (permalink)
flstf Easy Rider Location: Moscow on the Ohio	The way my father and grandfather described the great depression they lived through I think I would rather have the government step in. There must be some way to implement a system that will not result in a few banks taking us all down. I don't know if this will crash the economy as bad as the '30s but if it is close then it is not worth hanging on to free market ideals. The incompetance of the CEOs of these companies is unbelievable. How much more do the stockholders have to increase pay to attract people who know how to run a company. I can understand 1 or 2 banks screwing up but why so many tied their (I guess I should say our) futures up in this toxic paper is beyond belief. This sort of thing will cause many more people to loose what little faith they have left in the free market system.

09-30-2008, 06:07 AM	#49 (permalink)
Glory's Sun Registered User	I just don't get all the hype over this. We're NOT in a crisis. We're in a recession.. a recession that could possibly hit the 16 month mark. You can look at all the numbers out there and we're not even close to depression numbers. The market dropped 700+ points yesterday..but it was only a 7% loss. In '87 the market lost something like 22%.. so it's pretty pale in comparison. BAA numbers show a deep recession.. not a depression.. so I wish everyone would quit calling this a crisis. The market goes up and down.. companies go up and down.. but for some reason, we are scared of Wall St. companies going down.. it's a free market and other companies, just as they have, can and will buy these downtrend companies. If people would quit panicking for a moment.. you'd see the market respond a touch.. sure.. the market goes down faster than it goes up.. and everyone is worried about their annuities and 401's.. but making a panic run isn't going to help secure these monies. SO.. this is why I think the bailout in any shape is a stupid idea. We're throwing a band-aid on a gun wound.. and we've done that too often in too many areas.

09-30-2008, 07:36 AM	#52 (permalink)
Glory's Sun Registered User	you can call this a crisis because you see big names going down in flames.. but when you look at the numbers.. you don't see a crisis. You simply see the result of big firms getting bear raided by the short sell and you see the result of big firms finally having to own up to all the bad paper they wrote. We now see the demise of what is known as the Republican Party. They can't even get their vote counts right.. however, I want to point out that during all of this so called crisis, we see the champion of this bill being none other than Bush. Why am I to believe this man when he says a bailout is what we need, when his record shows that we should stay as far away from his economic advice as possible? The fact of the matter still remains that we will see a deeper run of a recession if a bailout does or doesn't occur, but I am willing to bet our economy will be better off in the long run as a whole unit if we do not look to the government for a bailout. A bailout does nothing to teach lessons of economic failure. It simply tells a corporation that it's ok if you fuck up, we'll just bail you out, which in the end makes the economy even weaker. So again, I say no to the bailout plan.

09-30-2008, 08:09 AM	#55 (permalink)
Glory's Sun Registered User	well I will agree that we are in a political crisis.. well.. ok.. at least the conservatives are in a crisis.. and I'm not going to really complain about that. I just want to make sure people understand that we are not really in an economic crisis. Banks are at their own risk when they assume bad debt and repackage that debt and take on debt of other institutions. The only thing that I'm really worried about is all this consolidation. We're seeing banks being eaten up by other banks which leaves less competition..and this is nothing but bad news on the economic front. There was a piece here yesterday about Wachovia consumers pulling their money out on the news that Citi is taking over operations. Most residential consumers will never see the effect of these buyouts but yet they still panic. Panic is bad.. just sit back..relax.. take a few hits here and there and you and the market will level back out in time.. it may take another 8 months or so, but it will level out..and when it does we won't be on the hook for 700 billion dollars..

09-30-2008, 12:20 PM	#60 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	banks failed in france and belgium today as a direct consequence of this mess in the united states. there is enormous political pressure from all over the metropole for the american political system to get it's shit together and "do something" to deal with a crisis of confidence that's percolating out into a credit freeze--the rates for interbank lending at at an all-time high today... but the dow's up. so maybe everyone's just making this up. or maybe there are people feeding on yesterday's wreckage. no problemo. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

09-30-2008, 12:36 PM	#62 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the only way in which i agree with the political talking head class is that we are now beyond that kind of thinking. like it or not, the arbitrary investments of belief that underpin the circulations of capital are in serious trouble---there is no moral economy that does not sit atop the same kind of thing. but there's a side of me that agrees with you, cyn----fuck them, let em burn---but not for the same reasons as you. and then there's the other side of me that thinks this is way way past the point where that is really an option and since we all live here too, we kinda have to assume that Somone can do Something to shore up the financial system in general so that the change that's really needed can get thought out and implemented. then there's this third side that thinks the only honorable thing for the elected government in power to do now, if they cannot do something, is to resign. all of them. we are fucked, we give up, push up the elections and swear in a new government. at least that way, the opposition that's been taking shape not just to these incoherent bailouts, but to the entire political order encapsulated in the person of george w bush, would mean something. but most of me thinks this is kinda funny. it's funny because the paralysis of thinking has been inflicted on so many places for so long in the form of artificial crises and imf bailouts, forced privatization and dumping of american agricultural overproduction in the name of free trade--it's funny to see the same shit happening here. so when i think fuck em, let em all burn, i am really not saying the same thing as you. but i agree with the sentiment. partly. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

09-30-2008, 01:27 PM	#64 (permalink)
percy Addict	I really am beyond repair since I sincerely feel this was staged long ago for the rich to get richer, the almost rich getting richer, and a new system(soon to come) put back in place so that the aforementioned can loophole it to death and get mega richer,..all the while poor slobs like me and you absorb the repercussions to come. And people wonder why no one gives a shit anymore.

09-30-2008, 02:13 PM	#67 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	it's gone beyond this cluck cluck mismanagement of money business now. it really has. i feel like a broken record. we'll see how this small-frame thinking holds up when the credit lines on your credit cards start disappearing. but what seems more basic a problem for thinking about this situation--whatever you decide to call it---is that this is a global problem, not just a problem of fucked up management at a few institutions. while the right was working on trying to use a neo-con conception of realpolitik to make the nation-state continue as a viable category, capital flows have moved into a different dimension entirely. one reason that folk seem to be having trouble with this situation is that they keep trying to think it as very small, very limited, involving a discrete geographical space. the ideology you think through is not adequate for the situation. the other problem is that the right is now being confronted with the class consequences of it's project---the transfer of wealth away from the poor and "middle class" that has taken place since reagan is truly massive--the class interests that the republicans carry shit for are not the class interests that they talk about---somehow, the incoherent hodge-podge they have constructed maintains something of its influence, particularly in the economic sphere--all this nonsense about markets being moral, rewarding virtue and punishing its inverse, all this nonsense about the wealthy being wealthy because they are more virtuous and the rest of us being where we are because we are less than they, all this nonsense continues to have some resonance. but it's all an illusion: what you are doing is naturalizing a class order, and one of the consequences of naturalizing a class order is that when the shit hits the fan and the irrationalities within that order reveal themselves, you have nothing to say. o sure you're pissed off---but you have nothing to say. the political oligarchy operates within the same ideological frame. there's another sector that apparently thinks that the world as they know it, the world that enables them to extract obscene profits using questionable devices without there being any consequences at all, that world is coming to an end--and past that, it doesn't matter. sitting in some gated and guarded community with a vast pool of cash behind, it doesn't matter. you and i don't matter. nothing matters: they have theirs, and fuck the rest of us. and within this ideology, there's nothing to say and because there's nothing to say, there's nothing to be done. that's what you are watching burn now. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

10-01-2008, 03:51 AM	#71 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	cyn---to be clear about it, in my everyday life i live more or less the same way as you outline. i don't do it because i find it an expression of principle (i think about other things that way, more food-related usually)... when i talk about the small frame, its mostly with reference to the debt market meltdown, its extent and implications. the major agreement is that the underlying cause of this wreckage is the american reliance on debt. living within our individual means is one response to what might be coming. the system features are different---i think the main divergence we have comes down to the fact that i don't link individual actions and the system of global capital flows logically, dont use one as a metaphor for the other. i get confused when folk do it, and apparently misread the motivations behind it. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

10-01-2008, 04:01 AM	#72 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	I can agree that consumers amassed a lot of debt. And in many cases that debt outstripped their earnings. The thing is, those people should never have been granted credit in the first place. I don't want my bank playing fast and loose with my money by lending it to those who can't pay it back. It's that simple. The banks fucked up and they fucked up using our money... and now they want more of our money to bail them out. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

10-02-2008, 02:22 PM	#77 (permalink)
hunbun0704 Upright Location: burbia	On a slightly different note - but relates to the bailout plan: From a Forbes article last week... The more Congress examines the Bush administration's bailout plan, the hazier its outcome gets. At a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle complained of being rushed to pass legislation or else risk financial meltdown. "The secretary and the administration need to know that what they have sent to us is not acceptable," says Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn. The committee's top Republican, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, says he's concerned about its cost and whether it will even work. In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy. "It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number." I feel this shows that it is all just a shot in the dark (as financial institutions like Chase has a trillion + in cash deposits). It has become funny money. I don't know what else to do, but I don't think this will do much but get the US past the election. At what point does it just implode? And for whom? I fear for those like my parents who were hoping to retire in the next 2 years. Ah, yea, not going to happen. __________________ I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert, But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime.. - Big Country

10-03-2008, 10:05 AM	#79 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	mmmm pulled pork sandwiches... i'd go as far as retarded. dumb seems to not be far enough. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

10-03-2008, 10:23 AM	#80 (permalink)
LoganSnake We work alone Location: Cake Town	So what does that mean and how will it affect me? __________________ Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques